


Rest Your Head Close to My Heart

by DancingMantis



Series: Dragon Age: Generations [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Family Feels, Gen, Kid Fic, Multi, Parent-Child Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 13:36:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4566555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DancingMantis/pseuds/DancingMantis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world turns, and generations come and go. </p><p>A collection of drabbles and one-shots about the ups and downs of family. Shameless kidfic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. We're Pregnant

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a line from "Baby Mine," one of my favorite lullabies. Alison Kraus did a beautiful version which you can listen to here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzoZnivlLhw

This was not how she’d planned the announcement, hunched over the battlements, emptying her stomach into the waters below as Starkhaven's banners snapped in the distant breeze.

Donnic’s hand was at the small of her back, purposely seeking out the spot where there was no metal between his glove and her tunic. His fingers rubbed gentle lines across the leather as the last of her breakfast deposited itself into the churning water.

Maker, it was wrong. It was all  _wrong_. Her chest clenched at the thought of turning to Donnic, of seeing his face when she told him that this life they had hoped and prayed for since before the city descended into madness, now grew below leather and steel plate. That, in waking from a long nightmare, they had descended into another, bleaker reality, one in which their child would taste in its first breath the stench of desperation and war.

This world wasn’t fit for a child; it was barely fit for the living.

Donnic’s hand kept its steady tread across her back as she looked out across the water. For a long while, neither of them spoke.

As the sun rose and the first watchmen of the morning shuffled blearily to their posts, Donnic’s hand paused.

“Do you think it’ll be a boy?” he asked, and Aveline’s breath hitched. She looked up. His eyes were shining.

She could only smile.


	2. Our little secret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the tumblr prompt, "Do NOT tell your mother about this."

The extortion began when Calliope was five. Varric ticked it off in conversation with the rest of his daughter’s milestones; she talked at ten months, walked at a year, knew her letters by four, and was blackmailing him by five. 

The blame fell partly on her mother, of course, for leaving the two of them alone for a fortnight while her duties took her to Val Royeaux. Calliope seemed unperturbed, but the skin around Cassandra’s eyes tightened in a look that, on any other woman, would have been stress. 

Cassandra was not, however, most women, and responded to Varric’s sympathetic expression by reminding him that he was on “strict probation” in watching their daughter alone. 

Cassandra was hardly out of earshot before a shriek cut through the yard, and Varric whirled to find his daughter charging off after the Inquisitor’s bog unicorn as Dennet shouted and frantically tried to wave her off. 

Cassandra had often quipped that, in trouble and in tongue, Calliope was unquestionably her father’s daughter. Now, with the Seeker’s firm, natural authority three days’ ride to the south, Varric was feeling the full weight of that observation. Calliope’s birth was the apex of generations, the distillation of Tethras cunning and Pentaghast bull-headed stubbornness. Each refusal was met with a parry, each rule promptly ripped a new loophole. Whenever he finally worked up the frustration to actually impose discipline, she promptly climbed in his lap and threw her arms around his neck, and his resolve melted.

She floated about in a cloud of chatter, spinning grandiose stories that she acted out with the wooden soldiers Blackwall had lovingly hewn from oak scraps, and Varric often found himself immobilized above his own work, pen stilled as her dolls conducted pitched battles and convoluted romances. On the rare occasions he had actual work to do, Varric found it necessary to send her outside, into the care of the ever-growing coterie of the Inquisition’s children.

The children of Skyhold generally commanded free rein of the fortress grounds. Only three rules, laid down by the Inquisitor herself (and applied without prejudice to all children, even her own) were utterly inviolate. One, the children were to obey any direct order issued by an adult. Two, they were not to take anything that did not rightfully belong to them. And three, they were, under absolutely no circumstances, to leave Skyhold’s grounds without an adult escort. 

So when, on the sixth evening after Cassandra’s departure, Varric found himself chasing a panicked and ink-splotched snowy owl around their feather-strewn quarters while Calliope squealed with delight, he was relatively certain he had failed as a parent. 

It was no surprise, then, that at the end of a week, it took just the barest hint of suggestion from Bull for Varric to deposit his child in Josephine’s office, begging favors left and right, and backing out of the room before she could get a word in edgewise.  

Varric woke the next morning—or afternoon; it wasn’t entirely clear—to tiny fingers peeling back his eyelids. He scrunched his face and groaned, and the dark shape above him resolved into a shock of dark hair and an impish grin.

“Papa,” Calliope said, the word too saccharine to be mistaken for anything but trouble. “You came back late.”

Varric grunted and pressed a hand over his eyes. “Papa was at a very important meeting last night,” he rasped.

“You smell like the tavern.”

“The meeting was in the tavern.”

“You really smell like the tavern.”

“It was a long meeting.”

“When you came back, Uncle Bull was carrying you under his arm.”

“I hurt my ankle,” he tried.

A thud of weight landed on his legs, and he grunted.

“It doesn’t seem like it’s broken,” Calliope said, wiggling her rear end over his shins.  “You heal real fast, Papa.”

Varric’s stomach spun unpleasantly as the bed rocked. “Dwarven resilience,” he ground out, trying not to open his eyes to the light.

“What’s rez…” He could almost hear the concentration as she formed the word. “Res…illy-ance?”

He tried not to smile, despite the wiggling figure on his legs. “It’s magic, Pup.”

The rocking stopped, and when he opened his eyes, Calliope’s tiny frame was sprawled against his chest, face inches from his. Her eyes were wide. “You have magic?”

The magnitude of Varric’s mistake dawned on him in perfect tandem with the grin that spread across his daughter’s face. 

_Shit._

“If you have magic,” his daughter said slowly, not bothering to hide the gleam in her eyes, “then that means Auntie Nightingale has to send you to the Circle.”

He opened his mouth, and, after a moment, shut it mutely. 

“And since Mama’s with Auntie Nightingale right now,” Calli continued, sitting up and plopping down with more force than was really necessary on his stomach, “I should send a raven to her right away.”

“You wouldn’t—“

Oh, but who was he kidding? She could already write passages of the Chant from heart (her mother’s work, of course); she could have a letter written, sanded, and sent on a raven before he could even stagger up to the rookery after her. 

Varric leveled at her the steadiest gaze he could muster. She beamed at him, a demon with asymmetric dimples and two missing teeth.  

“Pup,” he said slowly, wrapping his arms around her and drawing her to his chest. “How about we make a deal. You don’t tell Mama about my magic, or my meeting, and we do whatever you want to do today. Anything at all.”

He didn’t have to see her face to hear the smile. “Anything, Papa?”

“Anything,” he repeated, already resigned to the precedent he was setting.

And that was how he spent an afternoon hurling pinecones from the ramparts of Skyhold as his daughter, sitting with Bianca braced between her knees, emptied baskets of arrows into the air, delighted shrieks loud enough to wake the dead.


	3. Mountaineering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr prompt: "Drop it! DROP. IT."

Question one on Hawke’s mind was how in the Maker’s name a two-year-old had managed to arrange the bedroom furniture into a six-foot mountain, scale it, and lift a mace-tipped staff from its place on the wall.

Question two was exactly how she was going to get Elata down from her perch without alerting Fenris.

Hawke furrowed her brow at the haphazard, yet strangely intricate, sprawl of mess that stood between her and her unconcerned toddler. A tumble of books, displaced by Elata’s grand adventure, lay strewn about the floor. Odd clutter and inexplicably moved furniture created a no-man’s land wider than Hawke’s arm was long, effectively cutting her off from her unconcerned daughter.

“Ellie,” Hawke tried, voice as even as she could make it, “would you mind coming down?”

Elata, who up until now had been humming a tuneless melody and largely ignoring Hawke’s presence, merely shrugged. “I got Mama’s stick,” she said matter-of-factly, tracing her fingers over the leather wrappings on the haft. She smacked it with her open palm for emphasis, and seemed pleased with herself at the gesture.

Deep breaths, Hawke reminded herself. Fenris was still outside, in the bath; she had to get Elata down before he returned and upended the remaining furniture to get to the toddler. “That you do,” she conceded. “Elie, do you know why Mama and Papa keep it up there on the wall?”

Elata shook her head, but did not look up from her study of the wrappings.  

“It’s because these things can be very dangerous,” Hawke explained as she nudged a pile of books with her toe. When it did not shift, she placed her foot on it and gingerly stepped up. “Not everything is a toy, you know.”

Round, ice-blue eyes—her father’s wariness in her mother’s colors—followed Hawke’s every move. Elata was silent as she watched Hawke step across another stack of books, onto a small trunk, and from there to the top of the end table beneath the shelf. A grunt and a bitten-off curse, and Hawke’s blue eyes were on a level with Elata’s.

Elata’s perfect bow of a mouth quivered a warning, and Hawke knew she was running out of time.

She slid her hands gently under the staff. “Give it here, Ellie,” she said soothingly. Elie fidgeted, and tears began to dew at the corner of her eyes.

That was when the door squeaked open.

Hawke closed her eyes and mouthed a curse. Fenris stood in the doorway, a towel against his wet hair. In the space of a heartbeat, his eyes took in the carnage of the room, alighted on Hawke, and finally landed on their daughter and the massive, iron-weighted staff balanced in her tiny hands. Hawke saw his brows draw together and his mouth open, and braced herself.

“Papa!” Elata’s shriek cut him off, and the wind rushed from Hawke’s chest as the full weight of the staff hit her. Hawke stumbled backwards, barely missing Elata as she sprang from her perch onto the end table. Hawke tumbled back onto her rear, fumbling the staff, as Elata hopped from the end table to slide down a loose pile of books and race to throw her arms around Fenris’ knees.

The staff slipped, and Hawke flailed, barely managing to throw up her arms before the iron mace collided with her head. The impact threw her onto her back amidst a tumble of pages and toys.

Silence fell over the room. After a moment, she heard the soft pad of bare feet, and saw Fenris lean over her.

“Hawke,” he said.

“Hello, dear.” She smiled hesitantly. “Enjoy the bath?”

Fenris closed his eyes. “I don’t wish to know.” He stood, pushing back his damp hair, and extended a hand. “Elata, come. We’ll make supper for your mother.”

The staccato thud of small feet, and Elata bent above her. She pressed a quick, smacking kiss to Hawke’s cheek.

“Bye bye Mama,” Elata said with an energetic wave, before turning and exiting the room.

Hawke closed her eyes and sighed. “Fenris?”

He only gave a low chuckle, and shut the door behind him. 


	4. Spark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is some mercy, Fenris thinks, in knowing early that their son is a mage.

There is some mercy, Fenris thinks, in knowing early that their son is a mage. Jacob is barely out of his crib when his sister begins to complain that he shuffles too much, that his touch hurts her and makes her hair stand on end. To Fenris, the complaint seems innocuous enough; Jacob is all wild eyes and constant motion, a star pulled into reverse orbit around his grave-faced sister. They wrap him in wool to shield his down-soft skin from the dry Fereldan cold, and not a day passes when one of them does not accidentally shock the aging family mabari with a well-intentioned pet.

When the spring is unusually damp, however, and Elata’s complaints do not subside, Fenris begins to grow suspicious.

Looking back, he suspects that Hawke, with her own history, knew long before he did. Life continued with only occasional complaint—nothing more serious than the usual bickering of siblings—until the day, just after his fourth name day, when Jacob slips on a wet cobblestone on the way back from market, and the puddle where he falls dances with arcs of lightning. His arm is hurt in the spill, and Fenris spends several minutes calming the boy before the showering sparks subside enough for him to safely reach in and lift Jacob from the water.

The injury is not serious, but Jacob and Fenris are both shaken. When they arrive home, Hawke is a blur of motion. She peppers them with questions as she packs a poultice onto the purple bruise which is spreading across their son’s shoulder. Did anyone see you? How long did it take to calm down? Was there any fire or ice? Did he hit is head?

Fenris tells her everything that happened. They were in a bend in the road at the bottom of a small hill; no one had passed by or heard anything except a crying child and the soothing of his father. The lightning, dramatic though it was, was barely strong enough to send a tingle up the lyrium in Fenris’ skin. They eventually decide that it’s possible that this was not Jacob’s first manifestation, but only his most powerful, and that the earlier small jolts were simply too weak to be felt as magic by either of them.

That night, after Jacob and Elata are asleep, they sit quietly before the fire. Fenris will not allow himself the security of preempting Hawke by offering his thoughts before she can compose her own. Hawke simply stares wordlessly into the hearth. For a long time, they are silent.

When Hawke does finally speak, it is with the weight of memory.

“He should stay with us,” she says with a quiet resolve that Fenris knows, in his bones, forecloses any argument.

But he has none to offer; he agrees, to Hawke’s slight surprise, and they resolve to write to Varric with the news. Gradually, the details of a plan come together: Varric, with his connections in the Inquisition and the Chantry alike, could make discrete inquiries after whether an enchanter might be found who would be willing to provide guidance to a child, without committing him to a circle.

After a time, they fall silent again. Hawke’s hand finds Fenris’, and squeezes. Fenris glances at her, and she smiles ruefully.

“How does it feel,” she asks, “being husband to one mage and father to another?”

He chuckles. “Life is not without a sense of irony,” he admits, and gazes at the fire. 

Beside him, Hawke’s voice is uncertain. “I was… afraid of what might happen.” When he does not respond, she adds, “if our children turned out to be mages. What you would do.”

Fenris feels his breath desert his lungs, and he turns to looked at her. Her eyes are trained back on him, as earnest and terrified as he has ever seen them. 

“You think me so hateful,” he says, resting one hand on her cheek, “that I would leave my own family?”

Hawke huffs a small laugh. The corners of her eyes glimmer wetly, and she grins as if it will hide the shine. “No,” she admits. “Though I thought we’d have gone through our lifetime allotment of chaos by now.”

Fenris laughs, a low rumble deep in his chest, and pulls her forehead to his. “With you, Hawke, anything is possible.”

And he means it. She kisses him, as open and trusting as their first night together, and the future is not at all uncertain.  


	5. Branded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Rund’uren!” the boy bellowed, shaping a guttural roar beyond his years (themselves far beyond Dethari’s own). 'Flat-ear,' at once more vicious and alarmed in the Elven tongue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dethari's relationship with her father is very important to her development, so while this isn't kidfic in the same way as the other chapters, it's very much in the same spirit.

Dethari’s eyes burned. Children’s screams echoed, hollow through the roar of blood in her ears. Most of the words hurled at her broke like waves against the ringing of the universe and dispelled into meaningless spray. Only two carried, thundering against her chest.

“ _Rund’uren!_ ” the boy bellowed, shaping a guttural roar beyond his years (themselves far beyond Dethari’s own).  _Flat-ear_ , at once more vicious and alarmed in the Elven tongue.

 _Felgaral durnatha’len re durnatha_ , the elders muttered with shaking heads, as though she could not hear. Dethari smeared the mud of tears and flung dirt from her eyes.  _A snake’s most precocious child is still a snake._

Her father did not look like a snake. He looked like an elf, lovelier, Dethari thought, than any of the others. He had a broad forehead and gracefully tapered ears, and  _vallaslin_  that was night blue and beautifully irregular among the boring repeating patterns of the Lavellan elders. She would sit in his lap and trace her hands over the whorls and vines of her father’s face, noting where their paths diverged and making airy swooshing sounds while he chuckled. When she asked once why her hands did not trace the same pattern on both sides, he simply replied that he had gotten them later than most—before adding, in a conspiratorial whisper, that Dethari’s grandmother had looked so scary, looming over him with a needle in the dim light of the aravel, that he’d shaken the lines loose from fright.

Dethari laughed at the thought of her stern grandmother, keeper staff in hand, driving her brave father to trembles, and she hugged him and said that she would protect him if anyone scared him again.

But her father wore his fears more closely than most, and she never saw her chance.

Years later, shaking like a leaf on the wind and waiting for the click of a closing door, Dethari knew many things her father had labored to keep from her. She knew that the world was cruel; that she, as an elf and a woman, would experience that cruelty more keenly than most. She knew too that her father had been branded, his asymmetric  _vallaslin_  a silent warning amongst clans that this one was an outsider, born in a shem alienage and no more one of the People than the dogs that trailed the caravans. He was Jovan, Second of Lavellan, but his clan was forever  _tor’ea’shan_  – Those Who Stand Outside.

She knew that those marks had been invitations to death, luring disaster into the sunlit clearing of her childhood.

And she knew, as Cullen’s hands reached for her, palms forward as if to calm a frightened animal, that her own mark—the announcement of her life to the world—was killing her.

Two decades of tears undammed, burning paths down her cheeks. A roar of pain, choked to shrillness, echoed through the room, and Cullen’s arms seized her with bruising force. The wails that tore from her chest were fierce and terrified, screams of loss, the rattles of a dying animal.

Eventually the violent shaking of her soul calmed, and she felt stone beneath knees. The world swayed back and forth as Cullen rocked her in the cradle of his arms. Her hair was wet where his face pressed against her, and the sensation gripped at her chest until her sobs shrunk to hiccups against the velvet of his coat.

Cullen’s grip eased, breath by struggling breath, until she could pull back and rest her forehead against his own. Her right hand hooked around the back of his neck, holding him close, grounding herself against the whisper of fine curls between her fingers. Her left hand trembled weakly, useless and pinned between their chests.

The sun sank through the long windows, and Dethari’s soul burned.


End file.
